It took me a long time to buy the bear fighter, but when
I found it for $4 at toys R us I couldn't resist. When
it was built I was quite happy with the mold but the
brown color was far from inspiritng. I considered
a number of color schemes such as a cold steel gray,
millitary olive drab, the classic black, but I decided
on a risky but rewarding color scheme of white. Having
had bad experiances with acrylic white never quite
covering up the olc color I opted for enamel white. First I had to very carefully clean my brushes as any
contamination would change the color. Then I just
painted the armor sections white. No biggie.
I had to use two coats to get a thurough coverage but
to my dismay when I finished the job the hard mechanical
corners coupled with the white actually reminded me
of an old refrigerator. Unwilling to let my bear look
like a grandma's kitchen apliance, I took out a sharpie
and spme black paint to accentuate details and trace the
various corners giving the white semets a more devided
off paneled look. The refrigerator look thuroughly
gone I was satisfied with the paint job though some
comment that the black makes it look less of a polar bear
than a panda bear. I did later on go back and do some
black painting to the cockpit for it to blend in better.
I traced two black bars across the front to sort of
give the cockpit a rough and tumble football helmet look.
I left it at that for a while until my heavy beam
cannon arrived. Though it was suggested for the cannon
tortoise I already built a part for that zoid and it
looked just plain rediculous on the stealth viper and
barigator.
When I tried the heavy beam cannon on the polar bear
I loved it. The bear fighter's bulky body was something
you could take this huge piece of artillery seriously
on. I actually even liked how it sat slightly off center
on the 1mm peg. This inspired me to up the ante on
this zoid's artillary.
I took a 1mm to 4mm adapater piece that was leftover
from my bold guard and cut off the top gluing it to
the mount of the beam cannon so that it could attach
firmly to both of the 1mm pegs on top of the polar
bear at once. Thus the weapon sits far more stable now.
Then I went on to making another from scratch part.
I was already playing with the idea of asymetry in this
project so I decided on something that would mount on
the side. I toyed around for some time with some
leftover cannons from a flexible booster unit, as well
as some of stabalizer cap and blox joint missiles I
made when working on the beehive missile unit.
I used a leftover mount that came with the command wolf
irvine as a base and started assembling the missiles
from there. You'll notice that this time
the missiles fan out verticly a little giving them a sort
of bristling look. Next with some various leftover
plastic as a mount I attached the cannons. I originally
was going to do a typical side by side thing but at
some point it struck me to align them verticly with each
other. They also are slightly fanned out from one
another. I put some small stabalizer caps between them
to create the illusion of a joint there.
That was the looks portion of the part but I had to spend
quite a lot of time devising a mount. I originaly
experimented with a clip design that would fit over
the leg armor but that wouldn't hold tightly so taking
inspiration for the way parts of the active shield unit
fit overtop a stabalizer cap I began searching for a
part that would fit. I found it in part of the
mount originaly menat to attach the heavy beam cannon
to the stealth viper. I cut away some pieces and found
the circular part would fit over a stabalizer cap perfectly. Then I just had to bridge betwen that
mount and the part its self. This involved using some
of the very parts I cut away from the previously
mentioned mount as well as a bracket from the bomber
unit. In the end I created a well reinforced mount
that could be removed or pivoted at ease. Probably
the most difficult build of all my original parts
but I'm very happy with the way it came out.